Category Archives: Character Design

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So, this happened right at the beginning of the week…but it actually was very fortunate because I was accepting the fact I had accidentally made the right leg a little longer than the left, so I could file it down and make sure the threaded ball joint screwed all the way on this time. Once I fixed him up, off we went starting with the end scene. I can’t tell you how much I love this armature! It’s so brilliant to animate with, makes a huge difference, it has weight and brings personality and flexibility beyond what I anticipated. Totally worth the money. And so, the following day…

I’m really happy with how he turned out. He’s a lot better than the previous version. I think the animation is going to be really fun! He looks really good in his threads. I got hold of everything at last, even his new cap which looks dope. He’s even got some pretzels to eat.

I tried a red hat based on a paper-toy template, but he needed something more realistic so I stuck with the black one. A really lucky find it fits so well. He’s got new socks too. Lucky Trip. Still fond of this little guy, we seem to be getting along well. I sometimes loose patience with my characters, but i can really see where he’s coming from 😉

I re-sculpted Trip’s head too. I’ve made around 15 now, but none of them really looked like the drawings I did, some had eyes like a goldfish, and others looked too alien-like/Munch’s The Scream… this one (at the top) is the closest so far. I’ve got two versions the same now, I used a slightly different modeling technique this time it seemed to be more effective! 🙂

I took the plunge and got a professional armature kit (from the helpful guys at http://www.animationsupplies.net/) and began remaking Trip from scratch. It really will make a huge difference to the animation, working with homemade twisted wire armatures is fun, but they are limited and break too easily. I’m really looking forward to animating with the new model. It also seems worth the investment since I plan to make some follow up episodes. It’s thanks to Brook for inspiring me to raise the bar on my animation, she had her armature from the get go and I could see how great it looked. It’s one of the wonderful things about about being in college is you are encouraged to push your work further by fellow students.

It was very fiddly to make this thing for the the first time and took me ages. I had to concentrate so hard to make sure I was getting all the bits right. I still made a few mistakes, but the next one should be easier! The articulation of these joints are awesome!